Articles and Letters: Articles

Pakistan is projected to go through rapid urbanisation over the next decade or so with our urban population set to be equal to the number of rural dwellers by 2030. This transformation can be looked at optimistically, but it will no doubt pose some serious challenges as well, particularly with respect to scarcity of resources. In general, people living in urban centres tend to consume more resources than those living in rural areas. Providing effective municipal services to over 100 million urban dwellers will be a daunting task, as a burgeoning demand for electricity, fuel, gas, water and other resources overwhelms limited supply.

Shareholders in the AdvisorShares Peritus High Yield ETF who sold in late 2014 are probably not the last to pay up for liquidity risk, a growing hazard for some fixed-income investors bracing for the first Federal Reserve interest rate hike in nearly a decade. ETFs created in recent years and dealing in often illiquid or thinly traded junk bonds, emerging-markets debt and bank loans are an untested market force that may increase selling pressures in a market turndown, analysts say.

The man who was instrumental in blocking a foreign takeover five years ago of Canada's Potash Corp , the world's No 2 producer of the crop nutrient potash, says Germany need not fear Potash's move to buy German potash miner K+S AG. In 2010, Brad Wall, premier of the Western Canadian province of Saskatchewan, campaigned against Anglo-Australian miner BHP Billiton's bid for Saskatchewan-headquartered Potash Corp, saying BHP would market potash differently if it succeeded, resulting in lower prices and less revenue for the province.

Floods in Pakistan have brought havoc to Pakistan and there seems to be no end to it in the near future. The solutions suggested by some of my friends are untenable. Almost all of them have suggested the building of dams - small and big - KB and Bhasha - between them. I have seen many such areas where dams have been built. It was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the celebrated American Judge, who said that very early in life he had realised that he was no god and not even a half-god, which meant that one had to work hard at making a living. Pakistanis are averse to doing that.

An experimental Ebola vaccine tested on thousands of people in Guinea seems to work and might help shut down the waning epidemic in West Africa, according to interim results from a study published Friday. There is currently no licensed treatment or vaccine for Ebola, which has so far killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa since the world's biggest outbreak began in the forest region of Guinea last year. Cases have dropped dramatically in recent months in the other two hard-hit countries, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The bushes shook violently and the female orangutan froze. Her baby clutched her tightly before the two quickly disappeared into the Borneo undergrowth. As the bushes parted, a broad-shouldered male orangutan strutted to the feeding platform. Dominating the fruit on offer, the male great ape dared the other orangutan in the trees to challenge him for the food.